I intend to play with constant life sight through some description of enchanted item (part of my Role play) and If it shows shapes better than Oblivion and I see something through a cavern wall up high when I know there is no second floor to the place I am going to be bricking it.......and if I walk in and it scuttles down from the ceiling I may permit myself a girly shiver before I attempt to kill the disgusting blighter.

Huh. Do these kind of phobias REALLY extend to even the virtual world? Not being a phallic object (as someone so eloquently put it a page ago), I'm genuinely curious. I've never known anybody with a phobia, so would the OP really be afraid of a spider even if they were a bunch of pixels on a screen? That's wild. But hey, at least Pete says you can get rid of them.

That's more of a fair tone.

I'm heavily arachnophobic. It's as stated, not a rational fear at all. It's not really a regular fear at all. It's more the kind of fear that makes my entire body itch, my flesh crawls like hell and my heart rate jumps to a billion.
It can even happen just by looking at a still image of a spider. Animated=worse.

Ironically, the only thing that helps me deal with the spiders in Skyrim, is their size. They're so immensely large that I can't visualize their shape in the same way. So in those size ranges, the smaller, the worse.

Spiders in video games weren't a problem for me a decade ago (or a few years ago), but technology has caught up with us, and so they are rather realistic in games like Skyrim. The thing is, when someone has a phobia, it can't really be described as being "afraid" of something. More like absurdly, overpoweringly anxious about specific stuff (like kinds of animals) or other things, like specific social situations and a lot of other stuff. Arachnophobia (and other specific phobias) are rather common though, and unlike social phobias can't really be tied to other emotional conditions.

I think that, unlike people, we don't really perceive any sort of physical differences in spiders (they are another species, after all), so it is easier to develop a generic distaste, because their features appear generic. With people, we are familiar with different kinds of physical attributes and have as easier time with perceiving the differences.

It's kind of interesting, really. My father, who was a sheep-herder for a long time says that he after some time found it at least as easy to recognize sheep by their features as people.

It's nice that you are neutrally curious

EDIT: Curiously, unlike some people here, larger size does not help me dealing with it, at all.

Not going to lie, Bethesda does their insects very good.
Every time I fought the fire ants in greyditch I'd try not to look. They're just discusting.

Im not really afraid of spiders, I just really really really hate them. Something about them just want to make me murder them all >_<
So that will probably be my first Skyrim quest - eradicate all spiders!

Although I do remember the spiders in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic did manage to really freak me out
They were naaaaasty!

My girlfriend has a Phobia of spiders. She sees them and she just freezes, no screaming or panicking, she just shuts down. Its very distrubing to see. She can't help that it happens. When we watch lord of the rings and old Shelob decides to have a bit o' sport, she has to cover her eyes. Arachnophobia is very real and she hates it.

To what you are talking about both Dragon Age games had a mod within 2 days that took out the spiders and replaced them with dogs. Mind you it was weird watching dogs float down from the ceiling, but at least all those legs were not shutting down cognitive function in her!

Hmmm. Wasps annoy the hell out of me in RL, (I suffer from Anaphylaxis, when stung by them.) But scared of them in a game? Bit on the drama queen side to be scared of anything in a game tbh. In RL, I can totally empathise with anyone's fear of anything.

You can encounter forest spiders on the roads, huge ones, at night, alone.

Just being scared of something isn't the same as being phobic about it.

I would be afraid of wild lions, but it wouldn't feel as if worms crawled under my skin every time I'd see a picture of one. That happens with spiders. My entire lower back feels like it twists and curls around, and my heart rate jumps with a billion beats per minute.

Thanks for backing up my point.

No prob, I think alot of us take each other the wrong way because it is just typing here and you can't express yourself right. Just my opinion, but everything I said aside. I still think it is a bit strange to have phobias that grip someone that bad that a video game can affect them. Like I said also I have some phobias myself. So I hope others can get over it someday and enjoy the game.

I can sincerely sympathize with the OP... I hate spiders and recently got over my phobia of them, but they still creep me out hardcoe! I don't enjoy the prospect of meeting them in-game, but I'm not modding them out, just gonna burn the little buggars

I wasn't. You were comparing something you could be afraid of in real life due to an allergy, which is rational, to a phobia, which is irrational. It doesn't work that way.
I know my arachnophobia, my spider phobia, is irrational, but I can't help it.

It's as natural for me to react with intense heart rhythm, shivering skin and being somewhat paralyzed for seeing a spider as it is natural for me to feel pain if I shoot myself in the foot with a paintball gun.

Edit: To back Peter Ulsnes, sorry if I seem rude. I'm trying not to write rudely But it harder to express that with writing, compared to a talk face to face.

Buddy of mine has real bad arachnophobia. To the point where he can't even look at pictures. Seems funny to think about but I get it. Spiders are creepy.

1/10, obvious troll.

Please, there's no reason to push it. That is just unnecessary. I think you should take a look around the thread and read some of the explanations that have been made about the nature of phobias, and you'll probably understand Ucah8ter's reaction.

I have an irrational fear of nearly everything arachnid/insect. I can suppress it, but it can get to me and I can imagine them crawling all throughout my skin and I just get insanely paranoid.

I plan on creating one of my in-game characters to be afraid of spiders. It'll be amusing to see how he'll be able to take out spiders or avoid them.

The game has a lot of big spiders. So a lot of people with a fear of them, may be in for some rough time playing it.

Funny thing, as I mentioned earlier, the bigger they are, the less realistic they look, the more I can handle them. The small spiders in game, though.. Baby-spiders? I freaked out totally.

some people on these forums do my head in, arachnophobia isnt a joke man.

all i can suggest OP is wait for a mod?

I've been following the 1up and IGN livestreams for some time now, and they've run across spiders occasionally, but it seems like it's not that often. I dunno if you've been seeing the livestreams, but if you have, can you make a comparison? Have they come across so few by coincidence, or is it more or less the same ratio you've experienced?